Tag Archives: CCA

Wednesday, August 19 at 7pm South Bay 350 Climate Action Group comes to San Pedro for its first ever general membership meeting in the L.A. Harbor. We’ve been working with the San Pedro and Wilmington communities as well as Carson, Torrance and many other cities. Join us and find out about our active campaigns, and how you can get involved and take climate action.

I was in Carson California last month at their City Council meeting to speak on behalf of the resolution I asked them to pass to approve participating in a feasibility study on community choice aggregation (CCA).

Carson was the sixth city to have our resolution on their agenda, the five others having already passed it. Like in each of the other cities, someone in Carson, this time the City Manager, had the same question for me,

“I understand all the CCA program stuff you’re telling us about Joe, but what I don’t get is what’s in it for YOU?”

That’s what someone always asks when I pitch them our South Bay Clean Power initiative, especially when they find out I’m doing this work full time. They want to know who is paying me.

When you work pro bono, turn down all job and consulting offers on the issue, and say “no,” to $18,000 a month gigs offered you by people in this growing field, people get real suspicious and uneasy.

South Bay Gets More Done In 3 Months Than SCE’s Former Flack Got Done in a Dozen As A City Councilman in Gardena

What a unique concept. First admit what a failure you were in your own personal efforts of launching a Community Choice power program where you live. Then ignore or lie about the progress made by so many outside your community. And finally, try to kill the Community Choice power program for anyone else with the skills and abilities to do what you are not capable of.

That’s been the strategy of SCE’s man-on-the inside of the California State Assembly, Steven Bradford, who says he “resents the implications” that he is carrying water for his former employers and current campaign contributors.

Mock outrage by bamboozlers and scoundrels upon getting called out for their attempts at the old Okey-Doke is a classic loser technique. Good old Foghorn Leghorn in the classic cartoons couldn’t have sounded any less convincing. Especially after being puppet mastered all hearing long by the dirty energy lobbyist who whispered in his ear to feed him talking points.

It was a sad display of how laws get made in Sacramento and a cynical confirmation of all your worst fears about corrupt, dishonest, egocentric politicians who mean us more harm than good.

My politically connected friends (who prefer to remain nameless) advise me to accept State Senator Ted Lieu as he is and be happy for his strong environmental record.

They tell me to stop wishing he was somebody else and that I’m dreaming if I think he’s ever going to change into the dynamo that I fantasize about.

And I get that. You go to climate battle with the Ted Lieu you have, not the Ted Lieu you wished you had.

Yet still… I couldn’t stop thinking about it Wednesday night at St. Rocke’s in Hermosa Beach where I had gone to get away from it all and rock out to Jimmy Vaughan and his band. Luckily that totally did the trick as I downed one quadruple The Reverend after another, locking into the groove.

That night I slept like Rip Van Winkle himself, dead to the world and dreaming the vivid-as-life dreams that The Reverend, and the music, and the moment made possible.

And it all suddenly became clear to me.Suddenly we were at The Crossroads as Ted Lieu runs for Henry Waxman’s seat in the United States Congress. Waxman has been our heroic climate champion for many years now and is retiring. New, fresh, young, energetic blood is needed from a new champion at this special spot on the climate timeline – and Ted Lieu has now seized his moment and become that champion.

Everything he’s done in life has led to this unique time and place. And I could see Ted, bigger than life, looking strong, and determined and unstoppable. He was downright dynamic.

And the issue that Ted grabbed and commanded and was using to transform himself into a climate legend was Community Choice Aggregation.It was a natural for Ted and he knew it.

And right before my eyes Ted was making it his own and becoming positively evangelical about it. Continue reading →

Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, representing the 66th District in California explains as State Controller, John Chiang listens at the Lunquist Mansion on the Palos Verdes Peninsula during a recent fundraiser (photo by Joe Galliani)

Imagine my surprise on Friday afternoon when my cell phone rang and it was Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi on the line calling to tell me he had made a big mistake and that he was sorry.

He wanted me to know that he really regretted his YES vote two days earlier for AB 2145, the CAA Killer bill, which – Surprise! – was written by the big utilities to try and kill Community Choice Aggregation.

Al said he had been lied to about what the bill really says and does and that he didn’t really know anything about CCAs until a few weeks ago. He again said he was sorry, that he had dropped the ball on this one and that he was now going to lobby State Senator Ted Lieu to make sure the State Senate didn’t make the same mistake. What could I say? Al sounded sincere and remorseful…Continue reading →

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The Creative Greenius

Welcome to Creative Greenius.
My name is Joe Galliani and I've been blogging as the Creative Greenius since October of 2007. I'm responsible for what you read here and I stand behind everything I write. I offer A Brighter Shade of Green that includes reporting, analysis, opinion, commentary and policy advisement.